ENRICO LABAYEN BOUNCES BACK AFTER A LIFE THREATENING ILLNESS

Considered as one of San Francisco’s exciting & innovative dance makers, ENRICO LABAYEN battled a life threatening liver & lung disease for over two years.  This concert marks his much awaited return with three world premieres celebrating love, life, hope & the future.  Labayen’s Dance/SF’s Fall Season 2016 at Dance Mission Theater from October 14-16, 2016.

“Rarely does a choreographer successfully combine the precision of classical ballet with the freedom of modern dance, Labayen succeeded at this task, his work is hypnotic & mesmerizing. A refreshing vision of contemporary dance.” – Dance Magazine

After battling a life threatening liver & lung disease for over two years ENRICO LABAYEN, considered as one of San Francisco’s exciting & innovative dance makers, has returned in full force with  world premieres celebrating love, life, hope & the future in Labayen Dance/SF’s Fall Season 2016 at Dance Mission Theater from October 14-16, 2016.

Also presenting world premiere works are three of the most innovative and eclectic Bay Area-based choreographers Anandha Ray, Erik Wagner, Malu Rivera-Peoples & Laura Bernasconi. Plus performances by multi-award winning performing arts school Westlake School of Performing Arts and Dance Brigade.

The Fall Season high light are the much awaited world premiere works of Enrico Labayen: “Crossing: War, What Is It Good For?”  is  a soldier’s tale, the work that tackles the subject of war: it’s victims, widows and the suffering it causes to all involved; “No Chaos, Damn It!”, is a work inspired by Jackson Pollock’s paintings, a contemporary dance as abstract as Pollock’s art.

Eclectic and visionary choreographer Anandha Ray will premiere "Ashes of Our Ancestors", inspired by the spirit of the choreographer's great-grandfather, a Cherokee Medicine Man, and the struggles of the Cherokee people. The work is a dance that will cross cultural borders to the world where spirits dance through myth and storytelling. This is a search for pure and authentic movement that comes from a place where our human blood runs thick, binding people through time and space in the understanding that we are all one.

Celebrated choreographer Erik Wagner, will present the premiere of a contemporary duet entitled “Reckless, Just Enough” to the music of Sergei Rachmaninoff.  

Also on the program is the participation of Malu Rivera-

Peoples’ “This World Is Watching Me” in collaboration with 

hip-hop artist Pat Cruz and Laura Bernasconi in “Solo Suite”.

*tEXT AND PHOTOS (except first two) FROM THE PRESS RELEASE